‘It was a tiny movement, really. I almost missed it. If the penguin hadn’t flapped his swings I would have assumed he was dead like all the others… Then none of this would have ever happened.’
This was the moment when Tom Michell, a 23-year-old science teacher working in South America, first spotted a penguin on the coast of Punta del Este in Uruguay in 1975.
Drenched in oil from an ocean spill, Tom decided to clean the bird up and return him to the sea. But after the penguin refused to leave the Englishman’s side, Tom smuggled him back to his boarding school in Argentina.
Named Juan Salvador, the penguin became the school’s new mascot of the rugby team, confidant to the dorm housekeeper and an unprecedented swimming coach to a shy boy.
Now 73, and speaking to me from his home in Cornwall, Tom has reminisced on his extraordinary journey with the flightless bird, which is now the subject of a film called The Penguin Lessons.
‘Who would have thought that 50 years ago I would see a penguin flap its wings in oil, and now Steve Coogan is playing me in a film,’ Tom says, laughing.
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‘I really think it fits this idea of the “chaos theory”, that because things are unpredictable, very small changes can lead to bigger ones later on.
‘In my case, it’s a concrete example because 50 years ago, a penguin flapped its wings, this tiny thing happened… then I wrote a book that got published. Bill Nighy says that he wants to do the audiobook.
‘South Korea, a country of 50million people, comes to me and asks whether they can add my book into the national curriculum.
‘When a country comes to you and says that they want to put your book in front of our 14 to 16-year-olds, I simply cannot imagine a higher prize for an author.
‘And then, no less, Steve Coogan says he wants to act as me in a film. It’s just been extraordinary, absolutely extraordinary.’
After writing a book about his experience with Juan Salvador, Tom was first approached by Disney’s Animal Planet, which wanted to make a film about his relationship with the penguin.
Asked whether he had any proof that the penguin existed, he uncovered a reel of film showing Juan Salvador in the swimming pool at his boarding school, which is shown at the end of The Penguin Lessons film.
In 2016, the film rights to his book were bought by Lionsgate before Coogan committed to the project.
But, after recovering from a battle with cancer, Tom would have to wait seven years for filming to finally commence in 2023, with Covid-19 also delaying proceedings.
Discussing the experience of having his memoir – which explores the military coup that took place in Argentina during the 1970s amid political turmoil – adapted into a feature film, Tom said it differed ‘significantly’.
‘It was explained to me that the film was never going to be the same as my book, because a lot of it involves me being by myself and the narrative describes what I can see and what I’m thinking,’ he said.
‘And that of course doesn’t work in a film because you have to have dialogue and that involves two people, so it is significantly different from the book, but not in a way that’s going to spoil it.
‘The story of the penguin is the exact same as the book, and as far as I am concerned that is the important thing.’
Describing his time on set, he added: ‘I expected there to be a fair degree of mayhem and shouting, but it wasn’t like that at all. It was all so utterly organised and regimented.
‘It was funny that, because of the penguins, everybody had to behave and there was no shouting allowed. The crew said it wasn’t always like this.’
Asked where he thinks his journey with Juan Salvador could go next, he added: ‘Time and time again it’s the extraordinary power of this penguin playing through.
‘To be honest I don’t know where this is going to go from here, but I wouldn’t be surprised by anything because he’s done so many extraordinary things.
‘I’ve just remained as the penguin’s sidekick.’
The Penguin Lessons, directed by Peter Cattaneo, is in cinemas on April 18.
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